“Also, yes.”
“Are you in arelationshipwith him?”
Ezra flushed hotly, an immense wave of heat engulfing him from head to toe. How did his mother always seem toknowthings? But she couldn’t possibly know about Ezra’s secret fantasies, could she? “Define relationship,” Ezra said, skirting the question.
“A sexual relationship?”
“No. He’s my employer and my friend, but we’re not doing sex things.”
“Do you like him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like-like him?”
The double-likes were dangerous indeed. Ezra sighed and was reluctant to admit it because it made him feel foolish. Ezra knew his own standing in the social strata and like-liking Roman was the adult equivalent of having a crush on the high school quarterback, especially because Roman had been the actual high school quarterback!
“I don’t think he like-likes me in that way.”
His mother frowned. “Why do you think that?”
“Well, he’s affectionate with me, but he’s that way with Jay, our other friend, too. He calls me cutie, but I think he’s only teasing me. And, I haven’t noticed him having any biological responses.”
“Were you paying attention?”
Notcloseattention. It wasn’t polite to stare at another man’s privates. “If he like-liked me, wouldn’t he tell me?” Roman was always very honest and open, so why would he hide something like that?
“Maybe not.”
“Also, I met one of his ex-boyfriends, and we’re not very similar at all.”
It wasn’t just their appearance either. Sebastian was… experienced and confident in his own sex appeal. Ezra had been to a few gay bars and a lot of the men had a similar allure; it made you want to look at them and talk to them and touch them. Ezra was inexperienced and terrible at flirting and bad at picking up on social cues. He talked too much about some things and not enough about others. Roman had never complained about any of that, but it was probably because he was kind. Roman made him feel confident and comfortable in his own skin, but it was hard to forget a lifetime of being called weird. Or worse.
“He might be waiting for you to tell him your feelings,” his mother said.
Roman had said their dinner was his bonus, and the date he’d mentioned was only hypothetical. If Roman like-liked him, wouldn’t he have at least tried to kiss him by now? That was first base, wasn’t it? Ezra was really terrible at sports analogies. “I don’t think so,” he said at last, his good mood at his mother’s visit starting to fade. “He’s very attractive and successful. I think he probably knows a lot of men who would like to date him.”
“Have you met any of them?”
“No.” That was a little unusual, that in all the time Ezra had lived there, Roman had never brought anyone home.
She lifted her eyebrows and gave him a meaningful look. “Maybe you should ask him.”
“Maybeyoushould ask him,” Ezra parroted, feeling itchy and restless.
“Maybe I will,” she challenged.
Ezra regretted getting snippy with her. He should know better by now. “Don’t ask him. It’s really none of your business.”
His mother smiled. “Okay.”
* * *
Roman returned hometo find Ezra and his mother in Ezra’s bedroom, having some sort of discussion. He knocked on the open door to announce his arrival and they both quieted and turned in his direction. Ezra’s mother was younger than he’d expected, only a few years older than himself, in fact, with wavy brown hair and the same pretty brown eyes as Ezra, which were now focused intently on him.
“Roman.” Ezra came toward him and gave him a hug, which they’d been doing lately whenever one of them arrived back at home, as well as in the morning when they each emerged from their bedrooms and right before bed when they were saying goodnight. Roman may have initiated it, but Ezra was the one who’d made it their ritual.
“Hey, cutie, aren’t you going to introduce me?”
